Skip to main content

Google appears to have disabled Google Translate in parts of China

Google appears to have disabled access to Google Translate in parts of China, redirecting visitors to the Hong Kong domain — which isn’t accessible from the mainland. According to users on Reddit and site archives viewed by TechCrunch, Google swapped the Google Translate interface at translate.google.cn with a generic Google Search page at some point within the last 24 hours.

The change is reportedly impacting the translation features of apps like KOReader, a document viewer, for China-based users, as well as Chrome’s built-in translation functionality. Google hasn’t responded to a request for comment; we’ll update this piece if we hear back.

Google has a long and complicated relationship with the Chinese government. In 2006, the company entered the Chinese market with a version of its search engine that was subject to government censorship rules. But after state-sponsored hacks and government-ordered blocks on Google services in response to YouTube footage showing Chinese security forces beating Tibetans, Google shut down Google Search in the mainland and briefly rerouted searches through its uncensored Hong Kong domain.

Google Translate blocked

The current Google Translate homepage in many parts of China.

Google reportedly explored relaunching Google Search in China in 2018 and 2019 as part of a project code-named Dragonfly, which would’ve censored results and recorded users’ locations as well as their internet browsing histories. But those plans were scuttled following clashes within Google led by the company’s privacy team, according to The Intercept.

In 2020, following the enactment of a national security law in Hong Kong that gave local authorities greatly expanded surveillance powers, Google said it wouldn’t directly respond to data requests from the Hong Kong law enforcement and instead would have them go through a mutual legal assistance treaty with the U.S.

Assuming it’s not a technical issue, the disabling of Google Translate in much of the mainland could be related to the upcoming National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which takes place October 16. The Chinese government has previously blocked Google services around major political events and politically sensitive anniversaries like that of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Google appears to have disabled Google Translate in parts of China by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch



source https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/30/google-appears-to-have-disabled-google-translate-in-parts-of-china/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Max Q: Psyche(d)

In this issue: SpaceX launches NASA asteroid mission, news from Relativity Space and more. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/h6Kjrde via IFTTT
Post a Comment
Read more

Max Q: Anomalous

Hello and welcome back to Max Q! Last week wasn’t the most successful for spaceflight missions. We’ll get into that a bit more below. In this issue: First up, a botched launch from Virgin Orbit… …followed by one from ABL Space Systems News from Rocket Lab, World View and more Virgin Orbit’s botched launch highlights shaky financial future After Virgin Orbit’s launch failure last Monday, during which the mission experienced an  “anomaly” that prevented the rocket from reaching orbit, I went back over the company’s financials — and things aren’t looking good. For Virgin Orbit, this year has likely been completely turned on its head. The company was aiming for three launches this year, but everything will remain grounded until the cause of the anomaly has been identified and resolved. It’s unclear how long that will take, but likely at least three months. Add this delay to Virgin’s dwindling cash reserves and you have a foundation that’s suddenly much shakier than before. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

What’s Stripe’s deal?

Welcome to  The Interchange ! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up  here  so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know. —  Mary Ann Stripe eyes exit, reportedly tried raising at a lower valuation The big news in fintech this week revolved around payments giant Stripe . On January 26, my Equity Podcast co-host and overall amazingly talented reporter Natasha Mascarenhas and I teamed up to write about how Stripe had set a 12-month deadline for itself to go public, either through a direct listing or by pursuin...
Post a Comment
Read more